The other day we had a fast moving rainstorm move through Tulsa. It was very intense and didn’t last long.
It left a calling card, a beautiful rainbow to the east. It was rainbow mania on Tulsa social media. Everybody got rainbow shots that were a lot better than mine. But hey, I’ll take mine. I don’t get too many rainbows.
Looking west you can see the tail end of the clouds coming through.
I’m a pretty down to earth guy but I regard rainbows as a sign of good luck.
I fired up the drone again and flew over the backyard in between rain storms. This is looking to the west. You can see everything is very green in Tulsa right now with all the rain we are getting.
A stopped in traffic, crepuscular ray shot one afternoon.
And another shot from almost the same spot yesterday.
The City of Broken Arrow has a Veteran’s Park with all sorts of monuments in honor of veterans. This is the “War at Home” Memorial. It honors veterans who came home from war but committed suicide later. It’s a huge issue. War is hard on people mentally and emotionally and we need to make sure they are cared for when they come home even though their wounds are not physical.
And I went on a short hike at our Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness Area. The John and Kate Kaiser YMCA tucked to the very northwest corner of the Wilderness Area. I am a Y member so I just check in at the office and take off. I hardly ever see anyone else on the trails there. It’s pretty remote from the rest of Turkey Mountain.
I fired up my drone for the first time in a long time. It is Chinese made and partly due to the recent trade squabbles it is a little less friendly than before. But I navigated the changes in controls, got the batteries charged, and launched it right after a wave of thunderstorms came in and right before the next wave. That kind of thing can result in decent sky shots if you are lucky and I guess that I was lucky.
Another neighborhood sky shot, this one from ground level.
And yet another neighborhood shot, same street, different location, different day.
Not all my adventures result in a great time. I hit up my bride for a hike at Oxley Nature Center’s Northwoods Area. She said sounds good and we loaded up and went. Turns out that they are doing some road repairs on the access road, so they have closed it. So I said lets go anyway, so parked alongside the road and walked to the trailhead, about 0.4 miles away. And oops with the access road closed to the trailhead they are not maintaining the trail. We forged on ahead. We had sprayed on some deet at the car but left the bug spray in the car. The mosquitoes were hungry and were about to carry us off. The bride was getting eat up but we marched on ahead anyway but got stopped by a dead fall across the trail at the one mile mark. The brush was too thick to go around it so we came back on a slightly different route.
Not a whole lot of fun but still out in nature.
And I apologize but for some reason this post is not accepting comments from people. I have no idea why.
A couple days we had a the Full Flower Moon appear on an evening with clear skies. This is what it looked like when it first become visible on our street.
Zooming in it looked a little like a Giant Peony about to bloom out.
Later on it looked like the full moon we all know and love.
It’s May and we have rainy cloudy days and we have sunny days. I like the sunny days best because I like to be outside. Right now the sunny days are also cool days and those are the best of all.
We won’t have our California weather forever. Soon it will be hot and muggy.
I’m not going to worry about that now!
I try and get outside at least a little bit every single day.
I was feeling all energetic and everything so I thought that I would go for a little hike on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness. I probably should have gone to the gym, but I’m gymed out, Physical Therapy is all gym, and not the fun kind.
So off I went, the trails were all wet, not very muddy though but rain was in the forecast and the park warned that they might close the park to everybody if it got bad enough.
The upside of rain is that all the ponds were full. Nice to see.
I used a mixture of the new trails and the old trails. The Stay Gold and Tree Hugger respectively.
This pond was dry the last time I came by.
I was going down the trail with my Merlin app trying to figure out the birds that were singing and a mountain biker came by and said to be sure to watch out for the copperhead snake on the trail up ahead. Yes sir! Time to put the eyes on the trail and not the device.
Do you know how many sticks look like snakes!! A bunch. The thing about copperheads is that they are the slugs of the poisonous snake families. They are not vicious and once they find a spot they like, they don’t like to move, and they are hard to see. So watch where you step!
The only snake I saw was this chain snake.
This is a Skywatch Friday post so I need to have one view of the sky. Here’s the overlook on Turkey Mountain on the very southeast side of the park. That’s the Arkansas River down below. To the left are the funky old office towers that used to be the televangelist Oral Roberts hospital. (Don’t ask me why a faith healer needs a hospital.)
And then back to the parking lot. Never did see that copperhead. I am not complaining about it, just saying.
I am linking with Skywatch Friday and Our Corner of the World.
A sunrise this morning. We have a new dog, Sadie, and she gets up early, and that means we get up early with her. You dog owners know that when the dog gets up you better take it outside right away or face the consequences.
A neighborhood skyshot and reflection.
My volunteer gig with the Tulsa Urban Wilderness Coalition is kicking in. It’s Earth Day season. Here is me and my friend Marci at the local electric utilities employee Earth Day event.
And at a community event a couple days later in downtown Tulsa.
And speaking of electric utility, here is there power plant on the Arkansas River.
And the boat shed at Tulsa’s Gathering Place.
Here is my wife Heather. We attended a fund raiser for the local botanic garden. It was called “Sip and Stroll” so that we sipped and strolled, noshed appetizers and talked to people. Our first grownup date in a while and it was fun.
It had been raining in the gardens so the iris’s had raindrops on them. I love raindrops on flowers.
I am linking with Skywatch Friday and My Corner of the World.
Here is the Full Pink Moon from just a few days ago. It’s not pink. It has not ever really been pink. Now if you insist, I have the skillz and appz to make it pink.
From the Tulsa Botanic Garden. They had ultralife size origami, only with other materials and they called it florigami. It was cool, I’m guessing this is a giant begonia. Sorry if I am wrong, I often am.
And these are some big lillies.
And these are some tulips.
My gym is part of a hospital system that I think spends more on landscaping than they do on medical stuff (I’m kidding.) So these are the tulips from my gym. Does your gym have tulips? Maybe you need a cheaper gym. Maybe I do also.
Me leaving PT earlier this week cuz I hit 120 degrees on the knee bend test. That is a critical point in knee replacement physical therapy. Hurts like you know what but things are getting better quickly. Also, this week I was able to get on the stationary bike and turn the pedals. That was also painful but I loved it just the same.
From my latest money making venture. I’ve been saving the families aluminum cans for a long time. My wife gave me the ultimatum that they needed to be gone by the time book group starts or she’ll get rid of them for me. Hey she never asks me for a thing or ever gets mean or anything so we she makes a request I’m all over it. (most of the time). So I bagged them up and weighed them. 30 pounds!!
Drove 22 miles to a metals recycling place in north Tulsa. Got in line drove through the hole into the building. They threw my bags on scales and they suddenly weighed 17 pounds. Got paid in cash and I’m still trying figure out where my missing 13 pounds of cans went. To be fair, the scales are literally big enough to drive a car onto so I am not surprised that they are not true in the entire range. I’m not sure that I cleared a profit but hey I got to see a different part of Tulsa society. I sure lead a sheltered life is all I am going to say.
Went for a walk and found these small bluish-purply blooms and thought they were pretty cool. Just so you know, in Oklahoma, bluish-purply is word.
And late one day caught the American Flag flying.
I’m linking with the fine photobloggers at My Corner of the World and Skywatch Friday.
Last Sunday our family celebrated a birthday, mine. A big milestone birthday, 70. Oops, how did that happen. I’m still here. Heather made me a great breakfast of blueberry pancakes, eggs, and bacon. It was great.
And then we headed to the Tulsa Botanic Garden. Their tulips were peak, in my opinion. It was a little overcast which makes the colors pop!!
All sorts of different colors and varieties.
As a bonus, they had a “florigami” exhibition going on. Florigami is like life sized origami. The works on display were incredible.
I loved this huge florigami tulip on top of the hill overlooking the gardens.
The tulips were everywhere. I have about twenty times as many photos of tulips as what will show up in this post and instagram. Oh well, I got them if I need them.
They had some beautiful wisteria also.
And rotating florigami.
I stole this photo from Heather’s facebook page.
And then we went to Eerie Abbey Ales in downtown Tulsa and had a beer.
And then the nearby La Tertulia restaurant for some decent New Mexico style Mexican food. Green chili enchiladas.
Home for birthday cake. This one lasted three days. I love sheetcake birthday cakes.
Can’t believe I’m 70. That is getting up there.
I get lots of skywatch photos from my front and back yards, and that is great except…
I like getting out as well.
Another day, looking west again.
We have no daffodils in our yard though. Gotta drive to them.
I always love a flag snapping in a strong, cold, spring breeze.
The school where I tutor a first grader is honoring all their teachers, administrators, cafeteria workers, janitors, tutors and everyone else who helps out.
The other day the knee was feeling strong so I fired up the electric mower and got the job done.
On another day the wife and I went to a big box store and bought some cushions for our patio furniture. The cushions were cool but these roosters take a better photo. Can you believe stores let you walk in and take pictures of their stuff? Some stores say no photos but I ignore those signs.
The afternoon after I mowed, I decided to go take a hike at Turkey Mountain on a little bit more challenging trail. Only a mile long but the killer was about 300 feet of elevation change.
Here is some switchbacks on the 300 ft climb.
I loved the br
You can tell I really liked the bridge since I took two photos of it.
Staying in or Going out? You need to do both!!
I’m linking with Skywatch Friday